


Little Town, Quiet Village

by TheTeaIsAddictive



Series: The Beauty of a Beast [9]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 01:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6883714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTeaIsAddictive/pseuds/TheTeaIsAddictive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A walk through Belle's home village, where the town gossips aren't as discreet as they think they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Town, Quiet Village

**Author's Note:**

> All dialogue is from the song "Belle", in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

**Little Town, Quiet Village**

The October sun shone brightly through the crisp autumn air, having eventually been persuaded to show his face. A small, cold breeze, a precursor of bitter winds to come, flew across the trees and fields surrounding a small village in provincial France as a young girl walked slowly towards the main street. 

_Little town, it's a quiet village,_ Belle thought. _Everyday like the one before. Little town, full of little people,_ she reflected, remembering how she had thought it was a toy village the first time Papa and her saw it from a distance - on top of the hill where their house was, to be precise. _Waking up to say . . ._

"Bonjour!"   
"Bonjour!"  
"Bonjour!  
"Bonjour!"  
"Bonjour!"

Belle managed to stifle a smile. The townspeople using the familiar greeting right on cue every day never failed to amuse her. They seemed like little toys, or a cuckoo clock singing regularly on the hour, every hour. Monsieur DuPont, the baker, waddled out his house holding his tray of goods as tenderly as if it was one of his children. 

_There goes the baker, with his tray **like always** ,_ she thought, _the same old bread and rolls to sell. Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came to this poor, provincial town-_

"Good morning, Belle!" His voice boomed across the square, and she scurried up to him, a smile on her face.

"Good morning, Monsieur," she curtsied. 

"And where are you off to today?" he asked with almost paternal joviality. 

"The bookshop!" The enthusiasm gleamed through her eyes, as she continued despite _knowing_ the baker didn't really care. "I just finished the most wonderful story about a beanstalk and an ogre -"

"That's nice," the big man interrupted. Suddenly he yelled "Marie! The baguettes!! Hurry up!" Shaking her head, Belle continued to the bookshop. 

"Look, there she goes - that girl is strange, no question!"

"Dazed and distracted, can't you tell?"

Belle just gritted her teeth and tried to ignore the old women. They were no longer capable of holding their tongues, and she suspected they didn't know she could hear them. Besides, it wasn't like _their_ opinion mattered. 

"Never part of any crowd!" Belle heard Amélie Gillenormande sneer. 

"'Cause her head's up on some cloud," her husband the barber joined in. 

"No denying she's a funny girl, that Belle," the townsfolk said in unison. Belle schooled her face to one of impassivity. _It's best not to let them know it bothers you,_ she reminded herself for what felt like the billionth time. _Just don't let them see it bother you.._

She hopped on the back of a cart, letting the familiar, never-changing, never-differing streets wash by her. She saw the old, the young, the very, very poor. The fruit-seller - trying (and failing) to hide his mistress from his wife; the poor widow desperately trying to feed her children; the hard-hearted man haggling with her. _There **must** be more than this provincial life!_ she nearly shouted as she hopped off the cart outside the bookshop.

"Ah! Belle!" Monsieur Donmarché smiled at her over his half-moon glasses, his elderly figure stooped with both age and continually bending over his books. 

"Good morning!" Belle smiled back at him, relaxing the poker-straight posture she reserved for the other townspeople. "I've come to return the book I borrowed," she continued, placing it on the counter. 

"Finished already?!" She noted his surprise with pride. 

"Oh, I couldn't put it down! Have you got anything new?"

"Not since yesterday," he chuckled. 

"That's alright," Belle replied, climbing the ladder to find what she was looking for. "I'll take . . . _this one_." She passed it down to the old bookseller. 

" _That_ one? But you've read it twice!"

"Well it's my favourite!" she giggled. "Far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise!" She fondly stroked the worn binding. 

"Well, if you like it all that much it's yours," Monsieur Donmarché said, scribbling in his book of records. 

"But sir," Belle gasped. She knew first hand how expensive second-edition copies of that story were. 

"I insist!" His eyes twinkled in a grandfatherly light, and Belle knew it was useless to argue with him. And she _did_ really love that book. 

"Well, thank you! Thank you very much!" She waved to him, flicked through the pages of copyright and introduction, before seeing the header, 'Chapter One'. 

***

"I've got my sights set on that one." She didn't even have to look up from her book to recognise Gaston's arrogant voice. 

"The inventor's daughter?" LeFou's voice, squeaky since puberty, went even higher in his surprise. 

"She's the one. The lucky girl I'm going to marry." Belle didn't even have to look at him to know he had that disgusting smile of his on. _Are you so **unbelievably** arrogant that you won't even entertain the possibility of my refusal?_ Belle wondered. 

"But she's -" LeFou started.

"The most beautiful girl in town," Gaston said, a look of lust in his eyes. 

"I know -"

"And that makes her the best! And don't I _deserve_ the best?" His voice was dangerously low, and Belle was half-afraid for LeFou, even while screaming at Gaston in her head about her beauty not equalling her worth. _Idiot,_ she thought. 

"Well of course you do, but I mean . . ."

Belle couldn't be bothered eavesdropping anymore. She slyly swept past Gaston while he eagerly fanned his vanity through the back of a pan and kept on down the road past the Gérard triplets, Celeste, Helêne and Thérese. They were the only other girls - scratch that, _people_ in the village who were also seventeen, and the four of them might have even been friends if the triplets weren't so _obsessed_ with Gaston. 

"Look there he goes, isn't he dreamy?" Celeste murmured. 

"Monsieur Gaston, _oh he's so cute!_ " Thérese squealed higher than a dog howling. 

"Be still my heart, I'm hardly breathing," Helêne panted through a corset far too tight for her. 

"He's such a tall, dark, strong and handsome brute!" the three of them yelled in sync, mock fainting - or maybe really fainting, Belle couldn't tell - as Gaston marched past them, looking for - oh no, he was looking for her. 

She darted into the massive throng of villagers, slyly elbowing her way through them, catching snatches of conversations as she went. 

"Bonjour!"

"Pardon," she heard Gaston mutter. 

"Good day!"

"Mais oui!"

"You call this bacon?"

"What lovely grapes!"

"Some cheese!"

"Ten yards!"

"One pound!"

"Excuse me!" Gaston said louder. 

"I'll get the knife!"

"Please let me through!" he shouted. Belle walked faster, still pretending to be absorbed in her book. 

"This bread!"

"Those fish!"

"It's stale!"

"They smell!"

"Madame's mistaken!"

_There **must** be more than this provincial life,_ Belle nearly screamed. 

"Just watch I'm going to make Belle my wife!" Gaston exclaimed. 

"Look there she goes a girl who's strange but special," the villagers gossiped in unison. "A most peculiar mademoiselle!" Belle started flushing furiously. It was as if they didn't even care if she heard them by now. 

"It's a pity and a sin - she doesn't quite fit in!" 

_Maybe if you'd welcomed Papa and I instead of calling us peculiar I'd 'fit in' better,_ she thought with uncharacteristic spite. 

"But she really is a funny girl -"

"A beauty but a funny girl -" _STOP CALLING ME A BEAUTY, I'M SICK OF IT,_ Belle fumed. 

"She really is a funny girl! That Belle!"

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on ff.net 2/09/2013


End file.
